When we first imagined ManageFC, the picture was always the same: a small club, a muddy pitch, a handful of loyal supporters and a very long road to the top. For a while the game started you higher than that, in division 3, because the money at the bottom of the pyramid did not work. That has changed, and so has the start.
Where a new career begins
Every new club is now founded in division 10 of its country, the lowest level there is. It plays on a dirt pitch with iron goals and room for about 100 people, standing. There is no training ground, no medical room and no academy: the squad trains on the match pitch and the first-aid kit lives in a bag. Around fifty supporters turn up on a normal match day.
The squad is real but modest — players who would be amateurs anywhere in the world — and they are paid like amateurs, a few euros a week each. The whole wage bill of a division-10 squad in a strong football nation is around 180 a week. The club starts with roughly a season of those wages in the bank and a little more, enough to sign a free agent or two, or to put up the first fence and changing room.
Why start so low
Because the climb is the game. Ten divisions separate a new club from the top flight, and with five clubs going up and five coming down every season, an ambitious manager can reach division 1 in about ten seasons — and a realistic one in fifteen or twenty. Every promotion now feels like a different club: the crowd grows, the ground grows, the wages grow, and the decisions get bigger.
Starting at the bottom only works if the bottom makes sense, and that is the work behind this change. The amateur divisions now earn amateur money and pay amateur wages; the professional game begins around the fifth and fourth divisions, as it does in real football; and the elite is expensive. We will explain how the money works, level by level, later this week.
What you build
The other big change is that a club now builds its own home. The stadium climbs in twenty levels, from that dirt pitch to a world-record ground for 200,000. The training centre, the academy, the medical centre, the scouting network and the analysis centre each climb ten levels, from nothing to elite. The first steps cost a few thousand and pay back even at the foot of the pyramid; the last ones cost millions.
Building takes time. The work is paid up front and opens after a few game weeks — a couple for a new stand, up to twenty for a stadium of the very top. You will see it coming together on the Stadium and Club screens.
The clubs around you
The clubs the game runs follow the same rules. In division 10 they play on small grounds of their own; in division 1 they have stadiums and training grounds to match. Climbing the pyramid means meeting bigger clubs, in bigger grounds, every season.
If you have been waiting for the version of ManageFC where you really start with nothing, this is it. Found your club, pick your country and start at the bottom.
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